Chapter 8
I sat in the empty on-call room chair, staring blankly into space.
The berserk comment left by 'the guy hit by a truck' kept floating stubbornly through my head.
'If you've never been hit, then shut up.'
Fuck.
Yeah, I hadn't been hit.
And I don't want to be hit either, you fucking lunatic.
I sighed at those ghosts, who had no intention of growing up even after death.
Hmmm….
Let's sort this out.
Up until now, I'd only been lurking on this database and barely scraping together whatever information leaked out.
Like when I posted about the FUO patient, I was lucky if someone gave me an answer; if not, that was that.
This wouldn't do.
It was far too inefficient.
If I wanted to properly tame these bastards and use them, I had to show my hand clearly.
'I'm alive.'
Just that one line.
I had to burn that fact into those ghosts' brains.
'Alright, let's do this.'
I sprang to my feet.
The problem was how to prove it.
“Proof, huh.”
The simplest way was a selfie.
Taking a picture of my face and posting it.
I thought about it for a moment, then shook my head.
Am I crazy?
Just imagining myself in that dingy on-call room, making a V sign with that rotten look on my face, made me cringe so hard I felt like I might vanish.
That didn't suit my personality. More than anything, just imagining those ghost bastards looking at my face and holding a roast session gave me goosebumps.
'Looking at this guy's mug, he must've done nothing but study his ass off lol.'
There was no doubt a comment like that would show up.
Then what other method was there?
EMR
(*electronic medical record)
How about taking a picture of the screen and uploading that?
Patient lists and prescription records. There was no better proof that I was a doctor.
'...No.'
A warning light went off in my head.
'Violation of the Personal Information Protection Act.'
The patient's name, age, and diagnosis.
All of that was sensitive information. If I leaked it, not only would I lose my medical license, I'd also end up with a criminal record.
But hold on.
“They're ghosts.”
Right?
Exactly. They were already dead.
They were ghosts who couldn't be judged by the law or interfere with reality.
Would the Personal Information Protection Act really reach the afterlife? Was there a cybercrime unit in the afterlife too, sending notes like, 'Hell Joseon Slave 1, please appear on suspicion of unauthorized disclosure of personal information'?
It was ridiculous just imagining it, but you never knew. I should avoid high-risk gambles.
After much thought, I came up with the most perfect and safest method.
Patient monitor.
Heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation.
That monitor, blinking with the vital signs of a living person in real time.
It contained no personal information whatsoever, yet it was the single most convincing proof that this place was an actively operating hospital.
Alright, let's go with that.
I looked around, picked up a sticky note and a pen, and firmly wrote the six-character tag that symbolized my identity on it.
[Hell Joseon Slave 1]
Now the preparations were complete.
I quietly slipped out of the on-call room and headed for the ER station. Luckily, everyone was too busy to pay attention to some lowly first-year resident tucked in a corner.
I approached the patient monitor beside the empty bed in Zone B.
Beep- beep- beep-
A perfect backdrop.
I stuck the Post-it where it would be easy to see on one corner of the monitor. Then I opened the gallery and hit the capture button to save the scene.
Click.
I went back to the on-call room and threw myself onto the bed.
The title didn't need to be grand.
Short and punchy.
Title: Verification. The real practicing doctor you were looking for.
I didn't write anything in the body. Just one photo. Under it, I added a short sentence.
I'll take questions.
Now I was in control.
Heh-heh.
One deep breath.
I pressed the post button.
And then.
After one second of silence,
the comment notifications exploded in unison.
[A new comment has been posted.]
[A new comment has been posted.]
[A new comment has been posted.]
[A new comment has been posted.]
[A new comment has been posted.]
The gallery exploded.
ㅇㅇ (1.234) : What the hell, why is this real?
ㅇㅇ (211.36) : Hey, fuck, isn't this a fake? The Post-it handwriting is total chicken scratch, isn't it?
히포크라테스후예 : O living one, you truly did exist in the mortal world!
뼈덕후88 : Whoa, fuck, then can you really handle my request to show me my bone marrow slides too? Hey! Answer me! I'm fucking hyped right now!
ㄴ ㅇㅇ (118.235) : Nobody asked, you fucking pervert.
소아과망령77 : You bastard!!!! It was real?!?! Hurry your ass up and run to the pediatric ER and check whether RSV
(*Respiratory Syncytial Virus, a virus that causes respiratory illness in infants and young children)
is going around!!!!!! This is urgent, fuck!!!!!!
마취과통증의학과 : What's that monitor model? Why is it so flashy;;
메스의신 : Interesting. Is there any case going into emergency surgery right now? Laparoscopic or open, it doesn't matter. Share the surgical view with me.
트럭에치인놈 : Hey!!!!!!!!!! Does your hospital have a trauma center or what!!!!
Drunk on satisfaction, I scrolled down. Ghosts from every department were pleading with me in near-screams as they tried to sell their specialties.
메스의신 : O living one. In your era, how do you operate on an aortic dissection.
소아과망령77 : Hey!!! Can't you hear me? Pediatrics!! Go to pediatrics!! What illnesses are kids dying of most these days!! I need to take care of them!! Kids are insanely sensitive, too!!
히포크라테스후예 : Astonishing, this is proof of life!
I lowered the hand I'd had pressed to my forehead and opened the writing window once more.
Title: Everyone, calm down
Author: Hell Joseon Slave 1
From now on, I'll occasionally bring in difficult cases.
If I toss you a few lines of patient info, you guys can spill everything you know just like now.
That'd be a win-win, wouldn't it?
Post.
Then a reaction far more violent than before burst out.
ㅇㅇ (14.52) : Count me in!!!!!!!!
ㅇㅇ (210.94) : Of course, fuck!! Absolutely!!
뼈덕후88 : A case? What kind of case? Osteomyelitis? Osteosarcoma? Spinal tuberculosis? I can handle them all.
라떼는말이야 : If it's an internal medicine case, this old man's experience will help.
수술실벽면시계 : Screw the internal medicine old-timers and bring any surgical case to me first; I'm insanely good at reading laparoscopic views ㅇㅇ.
메스의신 : That proposal is reasonable. I accept.
트럭에치인놈 : So does the trauma center exist or not, fuck!!!!!!!!
Ghost bastards from every department started arguing, each claiming to be the expert.
Is this what idols or celebrities feel like?
This should be enough.
Now that I had this powerful weapon, all I had to do was steadily collect LP and unlock the possession skill.
That was the very moment.
“Dr. Hyeonjae!”
I jerked my head up in surprise.
“The patient in bed B-22 looks like they've had a fever since earlier. Come take a look.”
“Ah, yes! Understood!”
I sprang to my feet.
Ding- ding-
The noisy alarm from the patient monitor. The shout of a drunkard drifting in from far away. The sharp smell of disinfectant.
This is my reality.
“Fuck, back to work.”
I muttered the curse under my breath and trudged toward bed B-22.
***
Emergency Medicine chief resident, fourth-year Lee Minjae, quietly watched the back of first-year Han Hyeonjae.
He'd directly called in a rheumatology professor to diagnose a rare disease called VEXAS syndrome, then a few hours later he'd even nailed ciguatera poisoning, the toxic illness caused by tropical fish.
Was that really the performance of a first-year who had only been on the job for a few months?
The record of the past few months flashed through his mind.
Han Hyeonjae.
He definitely hadn't been this kind of character before.
“…Hyeonjae, are you having a hard time?”
A patient admitted to the ER with alcoholic cirrhosis.
Finding thin, inelastic veins was difficult. But this was a bit much.
Hyeonjae was sweating buckets as he jabbed the patient's arm four times, and the patient wore a resigned look.
In the end, unable to take it anymore, he turned to the nurse.
“Dr. Jin, sorry, but could you place the line for me?”
Hyeonjae could barely lift his head, only muttering apologies.
He was nowhere near an ace.
Just an ordinary, bumbling first-year you could find anywhere.
“Hyeonjae, this patient's chief complaint is upper abdominal pain. What's your differential diagnosis?”
“Acute gastritis is the most likely diagnosis! If necessary, I'll consider an upper endoscopy!”
“Then what tests should be ordered?”
“I'll check a basic CBC, LFTs, and inflammatory markers!”
At least his answer was loud and clear.
“Did you completely forget to rule out acute pancreatitis? Aren't you ordering a lipase lab?”
“……Ah!”
Then he blurted out an exclamation, as if something had just clicked.
Those kinds of mistakes are common early in first year.
That was all there was to it.
He wasn't especially outstanding, but he also wasn't such a hopeless case that he needed a lot of handholding.
Yes, his personality was kind and diligent.
He was just that kind of guy.
Awkward, sometimes pitiful, but still someone who kept stubbornly doing his job.
But today, Hyeonjae was a completely different person.
He'd snagged two rare diseases back-to-back, like a veteran professor.
'What the hell? What happened in between?'
There had to be a reason someone suddenly changes.
'Did he study... like a madman?'
Minjae stopped thinking there.